


The World Keeps Turning, the Grave Forgotten

by vassalady



Category: Captain America (Comics), Nomad (Comics)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Depression, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 23:31:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4412171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vassalady/pseuds/vassalady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack Monroe has never succeeded in his life, and stays that way up until his death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World Keeps Turning, the Grave Forgotten

Jack knows he’s a failure. He’s fucked up more times than he can count. First it was as a kid with his folks. Then he was a fucking bully. Then he went and played at being fucking Bucky of all people, and that’s just the beginning of it all.

He’s killed people. He isn’t sorry for all their deaths. The look in Steve’s eyes, though, the disappointment, guts him, though.

Steve is good, just, right. Jack’s not sure why Steve has spent any energy on Jack. Jack doesn't deserve it.

Jack thinks he’s in a motel in Charlotte. Or maybe it’s Cincinatti? Some place starting with a C.

Bucky must be, what, three, four by now? Growing up fast. He hopes she’s happy. No, she’s definitely happy, much happier and better off than she would have been with him.

Bucky’s mom. He feels guilty about her. He didn’t pull the trigger. It was that damned Eh-poo-poo who sent her into that hellhole to get killed. But Jack brought her into the mess. Because all Jack can do is fuck up.

His dad was right.

Why the hell did Steve ever give him a chance?

“One day,” he says out loud, (he thinks, anyway,) “I’ll make it. I’ll do something right for a change.”

Jack doesn’t believe it.

Closing his eyes, he takes a deep, slow breath. He can smell the stench of old cigarettes and joints. The mildew growing in the shower stall. The sting of bleach from the sheets. It reeks in here, but no more than Jack himself does.

What did Steve see in him? How did he trick Steve of all people into thinking he was anything?

Jack sits up. His head pounds. His stomach twists. Hangover? Can’t remember. He doesn’t care.

He wretches dryly in the shower.

\--

He can hear the kids shouting, laughing. Was he like that once? Jack can’t remember. It was so long ago, and he’s old now. How old? Fucking twenty-four? No… Twenty-five. His birthday was last week. He missed it.

Jack keeps walking past the playground.

When he tries to think of her these days, he can only see her face screwed up in fear. She thought he was abandoning her. Turns out he did. But he didn’t want to. Jack knows this. It’s the only thing he knows besides what a fuck-up he is. But Bucky’s gone, and she’s better off.

Maybe Steve never actually liked him. Bernie got annoyed, what with him walking in on them getting all hot and heavy in the fucking living room. Kid brother, he’d thought at the time, but she probably just hated him.

Arnie, too. Jack liked Arnie. But Jack was an asshole when he found out about Michael. Well, when hasn’t Jack been an asshole? Then again, maybe all people are assholes.

Steve isn’t, though.

\--

Some girl is getting hassled. Jack steps in, punches the first guy so hard, he reels back into the wall with a sharp crack. Jack thinks he broke the guy’s jaw. Felt it snap.

Fuck. He’s not supposed to punch that hard. Not with normal people. Steve taught him that, but Jack can’t keep anything straight.

The girl, terrified, runs away. There’s that at least.

Jack ends up eating dirt. He gets in a few licks, but they’re unsatisfying. He gives up, because what’s the point? They pile on him, kicking his legs, ribs, head.

His nose is bleeding. Hurts like a bitch. Probably broken.

He expects the police at his door while he patches himself up. No one comes. No one ever does.

Jack almost wishes someone would. Shotgun would do the job.

\--

In a dusty, used bookshop, Jack sees the book that woman wrote. What was her name? Steinman? Sternam? Whatever. Doesn’t matter now. American Dreamer. A stupid title for a stupid book.

Jack’s not the man in that book. He’s not sure where she got the idea from that he was ever anything like a hero. All he ever does is screw up. Stopping a neo-nazi Senator and “dying” in his attempt? Big whoop.

He buys it anyway. Carries it with him for a while, until he wonders how long it would take to burn. The wind blows out the first couple matches. The next two break. He manages to light the next, but the book doesn’t catch.

Jack dumps it in the trash where it belongs.

\--

He has an open bottle of cheap no-name booze in his hand. It burns, but he wishes it burned worse than it does. It can’t chase the taste of bile out.

The small TV is the only source of light in the room. It’s enough to see a cockroach skitter across the floor.

Jack can’t even keep a cockroach around for company.

 _Friends_ gets interrupted by a special bulletin: Captain America - Steve - is on the screen. Only it’s not a live feed. The newscast is, but not the picture. Jack remembers. That was when Steve addressed the American people, making a speech about both global citizenship and national pride. Jack had caught it in Miami, shortly after he’d picked up Priscilla.

The newscaster, a woman, speaks over the image, “Earlier today, Captain America died in an explosion outside of Jersey City, New Jersey. SHIELD released a statement indicating-”

The bottle slips out of his hand.

\--

Somehow, they find him. No, they don’t find him. He finds them. THey don’t know who Jack Monroe is. They don’t know Nomad. But they want the reaction of the average everyday citizen on the street.

Jack, smelling like booze with each shouted word, tells them exactly what he thinks.

That their little attempts to dig up dirt are disgusting. That there was no better man. That they better fucking get out of here, or he’d-

Well. It could have gone better. He did get cuffed for that, spent a night sobering up in a cell. Because Jack fucked that up too, like he fucks everything else up.

\--

Sometimes, Jack wonders what it would be like if he could fly. If he could rise up until he left the atmosphere. If he could soar until the lack of oxygen choked him, wrung him out, let him drop like a lead stone-

He can’t fly, so it’s pointless speculating.

\--

Captain America’s return is on every station.

Jack weeps, not for Steve (of course Steve is alive and okay, of course he is, it’s impossible for a man that good to die), but for himself.

\--

The news that he’s dying doesn't surprise him like it should.

“Don’t tell Steve.”

Dr. Foster looks at him warily (how is she his doctor? He can’t remember.) “I won’t, but Jack, if something’s not done-”

“Don’t tell him. I’ll handle it.”

It’s what he’s wanted for years, after all, isn’t it?

\--

Jack manages to kill himself from six feet away with an old, silver gun as he leaves the bar one night. That’s how he sees it as it happens. How is he doing that? Holding that gun so far away? And he’s not dressed right. Too much black. A strange sheen from one arm. But it’s him. It’s Jack. No, not Jack Jack. But Bucky.

Bucky, kid sidekick, no, partner, to the one and only Captain America.

Everything that Jack could never be.

Jack wonders where Steve is, if he’s not far beh-

~~~~~~~~

A man’s remains, formerly known as Jack Monroe, are found at the epicenter of the explosion. Publicly, he’s pinned as the arsonist. The coroner finds the bullet damage despite the fire damage to the body. Public record doesn’t change.

The body gets buried. There is no service. 

No one visits the grave for a long time. And when someone does, it’s not the one person Jack would have wished he could have seen one last time.

The world keeps turning, the grave forgotten.

~~~~~~~

Jack wakes up in a stupor. He thought he- well, never mind what he thought. Death would be easier. But Jack’s still so damn afraid of it. Maybe next week, he’ll change his mind.

He’s slumped over in a chair in the corner of the bar. TIme is getting on. Jack has somewhere else to be. Somewhere else to take up space until the bar opens again, and Jack’s right back here.

In the parking lot, he hears someone approach. He turns; he knows that face. It’s him… isn’t it?

A flash of metal. A silent gunshot.


End file.
